Archive for the ‘Infrastructure’ Category

Wireless charging has become fairly commonplace for cell phones and other handheld devices (even backpacks can do it), and now, that same technology may be coming to the aid of EVs. A German outfit called Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr has a patent for an electromagnetic induction system that would sit beneath roadway surfaces and charge EV batteries as cars pass above. The company is running prototypes now and hopes to make a product commercially available within three years. The concept is pretty straightforward, but there's a video (in German) on the company site if you got nothing better to do a Thursday. [Gas2.0]

The American South may not be the first place you think of when it comes to EVs, but two Southern utility companies -- Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy -- have both announced that by 2020, every vehicle purchased for their combined 10,000-vehicle fleet will either be a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric EV. That's great news for manufacturers and for EV-enthusiasts, since the companies' purchases will likely spur sales among other companies and individuals. Which is probably what FPL and Duke are hoping, since they'll be the one selling the juice to power 'em all up. [NYTimes]

When was the last time you used a pay phone? Like the collect-call industry that fed off them, pay phones have become increasingly irrelevant in recent years, thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones among both rich and poor. However, pay phones still dot city streets, and even in places where the phones themselves been removed, the booths that housed them often remain. So what to do with all that junk? The Spanish government thinks it has the answer: convert former phone booths to charging stations for electric vehicles.

In many ways, it's a brilliant plan -- reminiscent of Coulomb Technologies' system of tapping into light poles for...